


Shred of Blue

by cookie_rock



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Character Death, Circle Mages, Demonic Possession, Dragon Age Lore, F/M, Gen, Grey Warden Secrets, Grey Wardens, Mages (Dragon Age), Original Character Death(s), Original Character-centric, The Calling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_rock/pseuds/cookie_rock
Summary: A pair of Grey Wardens finish their Calling.[With apologies to everybody who's already used "Shred of Blue" as a title.]





	Shred of Blue

_.i._

_There was a stir within his blood_

_And the dreams lay thick upon him._

 

Winter wrested off his helmet, dropped it to the side, and pushed his sweat-and-gore-soaked hair out of his eyes with bloody, trembling fingers. “Well,” she said, “I can pull it out and you'll die quick, or I can leave it in and you'll die less quick.”

Crispin took another look at the ax sticking out of his side under his mangled armor, took a look at the small mountain of dead darkspawn in front of their little alcove, took a look at the growing pool of blood under Winter's heavily bandaged thigh, and said “Leave it.”

She eased back against the wall next to him. “Probably hurt more.”

“Really? Hurts a shitload already.”

“Sorry.”

He twined his fingers through hers and squeezed until she put her head on his shoulder. “Not your fault.”

“Shoulda been able to fix it.”

“Shoulda been able to block it.”

“How long've we been down here, you think?”

“Couldn't say. Couple weeks.”

“That's not long.”

“Long enough.”

She was silent for a while, and Crispin was afraid that he'd lost her already, but then she shifted. “ _See how the rain has washed away/The tears that you were crying?_ ” she half-sang.

Crispin wasn't much of a singer, but every Warden knew _Shred of Blue,_ and he would have joined her as she hummed the next bars, except that drawing in enough breath to hum was damn near impossible. A deep cold like nothing he'd ever felt before had settled into his bones; he shifted and put his arms around her, pulling her half into his lap before it hurt so much his vision swam and he had to stop, closing his eyes against a wave of nausea. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder again, clutched a handful of his filthy tunic. He wrenched off his glove with his teeth, reached up and wormed his fingers under her gauntlet so he could feel her pulse.

“I miss the sky,” he said. He'd always thought that surfacers made too much of a big deal out of the sky, but that was before he'd seen it for himself. Back down here he found he ached for it, for the touch of the breeze on his face. His father would have said that was another instance of Crispin always wanting what he couldn't have...but on the other hand, what he truly wanted was curled up in his lap, so maybe his father had been as wrong about this as about whether or not he'd survive the Joining.

“I don't.”

He opened his eyes and glanced down at her, puzzled. His vision was getting clouded, but he could still see that she was looking at him. With what sounded like an incredible effort she sparked a clear light, small enough not to illuminate much except their faces. She looked like he felt—chalk white and waxy, her skin gone grey in patches, the veins black. Glassy eyed. Shivering violently. Her hair was shot with rusty brown blood, thick black ichor, the silver patches that had cropped up over the last few years. The river of blood from her head wound had slowed to a trickle. Wouldn't be long.

“Brought the sky with me.” For a minute he thought she was talking about the light. Then he realized she was looking into his eyes with a sleepy smile on her face, and he remembered how she'd always said they were the color of raw lyrium, and absurdly, he blushed. “Didn't even have to get to the dirty jokes,” she murmured, pleased. Her eyes slipped closed and then flew open again as she shook herself awake, gasping, panicked, some animal instinct still clinging to life. “Oh Maker, oh _fuck_ \--”

Crispin tightened his arms as much as he could through the increasing reluctance of his limbs to obey his commands. “It's alright, love.” Objectively nothing about it was alright, but, well, they were together, at least. They were safe from darkspawn for a minute, maybe, probably. Soon enough he'd get a chance to find out whether returning to the Stone was as desperately boring as he'd always thought it might be. And they'd finished the last of the candy ration a few hours ago, so he could still remember what it tasted like. Whether or not it was alright, Winter relaxed again. Or maybe she just ran out of energy; he could feel her pulse growing ragged. “I love you.”

“You too.” She inched her good hand around to the ax. It hurt when she touched it, but only vaguely. He didn't really care anymore. “Want me to...”

“Wait.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head, took as deep a breath as his lungs would allow. She smelled as terrible as everything else down here, but somewhere underneath the filth and the dark was the lingering hint of sunshine.

He barely heard the ax clatter to the ground, and by then he didn't care anymore.

 

_.ii._

_A call did beat within his heart._

_One road was left before him._

 

Winter pressed her forehead against his, pressed her fingers under his jaw, and let slip a couple of tears as she waited. Crispin was still breathing. For now. Even if she could have stopped him bleeding out, she couldn't do anything about the massive interior trauma that was killing him. She hadn't trained as a healer. They were long since out of potions.

He breathed out, and then he didn't breathe in again. His pulse fluttered, slowed. Stopped.

Winter waited until she was sure, and then she kissed him softly, and then she instantly regretted it. His lips were still warm, he still felt and smelled and tasted the same, but...there was nothing there, and now the last memory she had of kissing him was...was _this._ She closed her eyes, grit her teeth, and thought about screaming, but she was _so_ _tired._ She would just stay here...

...maybe. Maybe not. She could feel darkspawn getting closer—she didn't know how many exactly, but it didn't matter. She'd been unable to walk well for hours. Her staff had shattered with her last big casting (at least it had bought them a few minutes of peace). Putting up some light so she could see Crispin clearly again before he died had taken everything she had left. She was bleeding out a lot more slowly than she had expected. If more than a few showed up...

She closed her eyes and considered her options. Then she dragged herself up the wall to stand on her feet.

She used Crispin's ax as an awkward crutch as she hobbled away. He didn't need it anymore. Moving made her dizzy, but she didn't need to get too far—she'd rather his corpse not get possessed as well, it just seemed rude, but she figured she could just swing around the pile of rocks and dead darkspawn and...that would be far enough. Probably.

She didn't really know the proper form for this, if there was any, but she had no sooner dropped the ax and let out a resigned sigh than she felt a familiar presence pushing at the back of her mind, a presence she hadn't gone more than a day without feeling since her Harrowing, and the world seemed to take on a little bit of a reddish haze (she could hear the darkspawn drawing nearer with her ears now—Maker, there were nearly a hundred of them). She reached up to clutch the Warden's Oath around her neck as the last free action she'd ever take, and then she turned her thoughts inward.

She thought of Crispin first. How she'd never again see his face, or hear his heartbeat. Never draw a low chuckle from him, or ste al the first sip of his beer, or feel him inside her, how little time they'd had together before they died in a hole a thousand feet below the ground, how they'd never grow old together or see the fucking sun again, how they'd thrown everything away to save a world that hated them both. She dug deeper into that hate, into the way her shoulder blades crawled under the stares of strangers noticing her staff, of the mutters of other Wardens who had never met a mage in their life, and then even deeper, into the years growing in the apprentice dorms, the fear and resentment and terrifying silent omnipresence of the Templars, into nights spent muffling sobs in her pillow, the constant looming threat of the brand, the feeling of her mother's fingers slipping out of hers...

Anger had been simmering under her skin since she was eight, and for the first time she let herself sit with it. Let herself _really_ _feel_ it in a way she had always been afraid to. She let it overcome her ingrained resistance as the tears on her face boiled away in the heat rising from her skin, let it twist through her veins as surely as the taint, and felt her skin crack and bleed and split, and let her anger become a howl of grief that turned into a single word. _NOW_ , she heard, or thought, and she choked on a sob as she replied _yes,_ and white-hot Rage exploded from the part of her that was always connected to the fade, burning a path through her soul just as the demonfire started in her belly and burned through the rest of her, and she had just a second to think _It hurts it hurts oh fuck it hurts_ before her thoughts were no longer her own and the darkspawn rounding the corner were met with a shriek that was inextricable from the roar of the wall of fire that engulfed them.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a little bit experimental, so I would really appreciate feedback.


End file.
